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Perhaps it's time we give JoePa the benefit of the doubt

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Maybe, it's time to put Joe Paterno's statue back where it hasn't been in a year, outside of Beaver Stadium.

Maybe, it's time the decades of good he did for Penn State - on the field and off of it - to once again stand as his legacy. Not just to the Penn State alumni and fans who we all figured were blindly supporting him through the harshest of accusations, but to the world.

Maybe, the NCAA has to revoke the sanctions it levied against Penn State last July, effective immediately, because they were based on a dangerous cocktail of flawed information and a rush to judgement.

Maybe, those of us who have accused Paterno of not acting fast enough acted too quickly of convicting him in the court of public opinion.

Those should be the prevailing thoughts after the Paterno family released the results of the findings it sought in response to the Freeh Report. If Louis Freeh wantonly jumped to conclusion after conclusion during his investigation into how Penn State handled the Jerry Sandusky scandal, which in a nutshell the Paterno report found, shouldn't we all be a lot more open to the idea that Paterno got a bad rap here?

Two things before we go on:

1.) It should be noted that the Paterno family paid for the Paterno report and hand-picked the investigators. So, it shouldn't be surprising that the findings came out in Joe Paterno's favor.

2.) Just because this is essentially a public relations piece in support of JoePa doesn't mean it isn't loaded with facts. And these aren't facts produced by e-mails. These are the findings of Dick Thornburg, the former Pennsylvania governor and U.S. attorney general. Of Dr. Fred Berlin, founder of the Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic and who serves as director of the Sexual Behaviors Consultation Unit. Of former FBI profiler Jim Clemente. That should hold much more weight than the opinions of Penn State alumni and the fans who consider "Joe Knows Football" T-shirts formal wear.

In the 238-page report released Sunday morning, there is no bombshell fact that will knock the nation on its ear. There's no "Because of this, Joe Paterno did not/could not know the extent of the issues" moment. The shame of it is, short of that, a lot of minds will remain unchanged.

What the Paterno report does offer is the critical look at the Freeh Report for which so many Penn Staters have been pining. It provided a look at dealing with sexual abusers of children, a crime for which former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky has been famously convicted. The combination made this report arguably more comprehensive than the one the Penn State Board of Trustees paid for and then allowed the NCAA to use to beat the football program over the head.

"In my opinion, the Freeh Report is seriously flawed, both with respect to the process of the (Special Investigative Council's) investigation and its findings related to Mr. Paterno," Thornburg wrote in his report.

There's nothing in this report in support of the old coach's innocence that Paterno's most ardent supporters haven't been pointing out for the last seven months.

Since none of the most damning string of e-mails from 1998 mentioned Paterno by name, Freeh's assertion that they were evidence Paterno knew about early allegations against Sandusky and pushed for a cover-up are a gross push to a conclusion unsubstantiated by the facts. In fact, Thornburg pointed out that Freeh did not make mention of "contrary evidence" that Paterno did not know about the 1998 Sandusky incident - presumably including the fact that Paterno testified to the grand jury, under oath, that he did not recall the incident.

Each of the three reports touches on the same types of criticisms against the Freeh Report: That Louis Freeh consistently jumped to conclusions without the evidence to back it up. That despite his insistence that his firm conducted hundreds of interviews, he never talked to the people at the center of the case - Paterno, Sandusky, former university president Graham Spanier, former athletic director Tim Curley, ex-vice president Gary Schultz and former quarterbacks coach Mike McQueary.

But the most damning criticism of the Freeh Report may have been the one Dr. Berlin wrote. In it, he basically indicates Freeh and his team failed to recognize the difficulties a greater number of people than Joe Paterno have had over the years recognizing signs of pedophilia among friends, co-workers and even family members.

That's a huge statement, because Freeh's report to its core relies on the assumption that Paterno, Curley, Schultz and Spanier recognized in 1998 that Sandusky was a pedophile who should be stopped, although stopping him somehow would be a serious public relations hit to the university and its football program.

"In my professional opinion," Dr. Berlin wrote in his report, "Joe Paterno was likely one of hundreds, if not thousands, of such people who were so deceived. That said, I have seen no credible evidence in the 'Freeh Report' supporting the conclusion that Joe Paterno had acted in bad faith regarding the Sandusky situation. Nor have I seen any evidence that Joe Paterno was a man who lacked a genuine concern for the well-being of others - particularly children."

So, where does Penn State stand now? Where does Paterno? Even after the release of the Paterno family's report, that's difficult to say, because for so many, this whole hellish saga has been centered around the wrong people from the outset.

We have one document, the Freeh Report, that strongly indicts Penn State's inner circle - with Paterno at the head of the table - for covering up a heinous crime.

We have another document now, the Paterno report, in which several sources make minced meat not only of Freeh's findings, but the way he conducted his investigation in the first place.

As so often happens in this country nowadays, people will likely side with the theory they've sided with from the beginning. Those who believe Paterno was a monster who garnered too much influence and used it to make Penn State more a football factory than a university will hold the Freeh Report as gospel. Those who hold onto the reputation Paterno built during 45 seasons as a head football coach who graduated players, demanded excellence and turned boys into men with the lessons he taught have their rebuttal to the others now.

But no matter which side you sit on today, ask yourself this: If you were sitting on a jury, and you were given the Freeh and Paterno reports as evidence from the prosecution and defense, could you convict Joe Paterno of covering up the actions of Jerry Sandusky beyond a reasonable doubt? Without his name in the e-mails? Without testimony from anybody saying he knew directly? With Paterno's statement to the grand jury that he did not recall the early incidents? With his spotless history? It shouldn't be as easy as it once seemed to be. It can't be.

This is America, where you're innocent until proven guilty, where you get the benefit of the doubt until the evidence comes out.

If anybody deserves that benefit, it's Joe Paterno.

Contact the writer: dcollins@timesshamrock.com

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